“Harry Potter” Box Office Starts with a Bang

This past week saw the start of performances for four new shows including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which appears to be a hit in the making.

Spring Season is Off and Running

In the week ending March 25, 2018, four new shows began previews on Broadway. On March 16, 2018, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two began performances, playing six shows in its first partial week of previews. Over the course of these six performances, the shows brought in $1,541,957, which represents 110.9% of their gross potential. With a top ticket price of $287, the average paid admission was $158.44, and the audience was filled up to 100.0%. This demonstrates a very strong beginning for this double decker transplant from London, bolstered by the unparalleled success of the Harry Potter books and movies. Nevertheless, this pair of plays is an original take on the idea of a screen to stage adaptation; rather than aim for a fluffy musical regurgitating the same story, these plays take on an entirely new story extended from the beloved characters known to children and adults across the world. This past week, several other shows began performances as well. On March 20, 2018, Rocktopia began performances, playing a full week of eight shows. That week’s gross amounted to $813,589, which represents 54.2% of its gross potential. With a top ticket price of $247, the average paid admission was $66.02, and the audience was filled up to 87.8% of its capacity. In comparison to Harry Potter, Rocktopia has a much more uncertain future in terms of box office.
In addition, this past week saw the start of previews for Children of a Lesser God, commencing on March 22, 2018, and playing 5 shows in its first week. Over the course of these 5 performances, the play brought in $247,123, which represents 39.4% of its gross potential. With a top ticket price of $247, the average paid admission was $56.91, and the audience was filled up to 86.5% of its gross potential. Joshua Jackson alone may not be a huge box office draw, so this play will need to rely on its excellent reviews in order to improve its box office earnings. Finally, The Iceman Cometh also began previews this past week, beginning with two shows starting on March 23, 2018. In those two performances, the show did quite well, bringing in $391,717 which amounts to 104.9% of its gross potential. With a top ticket price of $397, the average paid admission was $186.80, and the audience capacity was an average of 99.5%. While the first two performances alone are not always the best indicator of a play’s future success, this does bode well for this epic revival starring Denzel Washington.

Overall a Strong Week on Broadway

In addition to those four new shows beginning previews, several other shows demonstrated an increase in ticket sales. Springsteen on Broadway went up by $482,290 to reach a weekly gross of $2,407,110 back to a full five-performance week. My Fair Lady went up by $408,587 to reach a weekly gross of $934,717, which represents 71.3% of its gross potential. Escape to Margaritaville saw a slight uptick after its opening night reviews, going up by $143,528 to reach a weekly gross of $708,813, or 40.4% of its gross potential. Overall, the entire industry went up by $3,459,901 to reach a weekly gross of $35,414,663 over 34 shows, which represents a per-show average of $1,041,608.